Chapter 1247: Chapter 1247: Ouija Board, Stone Statue, and Camera
"Luviya, here’s a towel for you. How did it turn out?"
"I still can’t see clearly."
The strands of hair on her forehead stuck to her skin, wet, as Luviya shook her head:
"This is no longer about interference from the Miracle Element. I suspect it has anti-divination abilities of its own."
"Take a break first; I’ll try a seance."
For souls that have not yet reached their endpoint, a seance is usually simple and effective, but that only applies to ordinary souls. This time, Shard’s "Soul Echo" completely failed for the first time. He wasn’t sure if it was because he couldn’t communicate with Mr. Thomas Granger at all, or if the other party refused Shard’s "invitation."
"No worries, there’s another way."
Luviya considered for a while:
"Let’s use the Ouija Board."
"But if we can’t communicate with the soul, what’s the use of a Ouija Board?"
"No, no, not the type used to communicate with souls, but to communicate with the corpse."
She rummaged through the suitcase she brought and pulled out a not-very-large oak board. The board was engraved with twenty-nine Carsonrick letters, and the engravings were painted with red lacquer. Accompanying the Ouija board was a wooden pointer with a circular glass orb embedded at the center, which together could be used for simple necromancy games.
"I learned new skills from the Prophet’s Society in Randall Valley. Let’s try it. Shard, you know puppetry, right? Make the skeleton sit up now."
Thus, Shard controlled the skeleton to sit up. The skeleton’s right arm extended, with the finger bone of the index finger pressing against the Ouija Board along with Luviya’s finger. Shard lit Luviya’s special incense at the side, and the dark green smoke immediately permeated the interior of the skeleton, as if layering muscles within it.
As the Diviner recited the spell words, the skeleton controlled by Shard began to tremble, then the skull lifted, with a faint gray mist appearing in the eye sockets.
"Are you Thomas Granger?"
Luviya immediately asked, and the small pointer on the Ouija Board, pressed by both the dead and the living, quickly pointed to three letters, spelling out the word for "Yes."
"Where did your soul go?"
Luviya asked again, and the pointer swiftly moved again, now spelling out the word "Unknown."
"As expected."
Luviya muttered softly and posed her real question:
"Where is there a clue about the location of your soul?"
This time, the small pointer of the Ouija Board did not move immediately. After a full half a minute, it slowly moved under the guidance of the fingers of both the dead and the living, pointing to different letters.
Shard arranged those letters together, and the meaning was:
[I-guard-this-land, I-will-appear-at-the-place-of-the-land’s-madness.]
"So, do we need to find the local Mad Land?"
Shard asked:
"Miss Benanis’ estate, the stone petrification area in the Creekland Woods outside the city, and the Saint Perry Cemetery. I encountered three Mad Lands in Randall Valley, but never came across Mr. Granger."
The violet-eyed young woman raised an eyebrow:
"That’s easy to explain because the issues in these three places aren’t severe. The first place, Miss Lathis frequently cleanses the evil spirits arising from the land, so the pollution is constantly reduced. The petrification in the second site appears to be the weakest, seeming like the issue has only just started, even taking a long time to consume even a petrified corpse. Although the third site is dangerous, it is still restricted and sealed by Saint Perry, thus theoretically the safest."
"Makes sense. The situation in the Emerald Dream I encountered was severe enough that Mr. Granger revealed himself. Next, I still need to find the most frenzied existing Mad Land locally?"
Just as Shard was speaking, he suddenly felt the force of the skeleton’s tremors increasing significantly, nearly losing control:
"We can’t ask more; any further questions, and this skeleton will become an undead creature. Mr. Thomas Granger most likely died for noble reasons; we must not desecrate his corpse."
Luviya nodded, and Shard, therefore, controlled the nearly out-of-control skeleton to lie back into the coffin. He quickly covered it and placed the round emblem on his chest atop the lid. The emblem is used to detect witches, and its bone-white edges crafted by Priest Augustus are top-grade alchemical divine items, which can effectively suppress the creation of undead creatures.
"Can you divine the location of the Mad Land within the Randall Valley?"
"Oh, Shard, I’ve told you many times, don’t think that divination is omnipotent. Besides, the Mad Land is the result of a distortion in the essence of the earth, why would you think my divination could not touch this... Using a special coin for divination might work, but we don’t have the coin now."
"Then just wait, at least we’ve confirmed the final target, just wait for Mr. Granger to appear."
Shard sighed slightly, the clues had come to an end, but not completely.
As he spoke, his gaze turned to the middle-aged stone statue beside Mia:
"Luviya, what do you think of this stone statue?"
Luviya turned around and looked at the seated statue:
"This one?"
She placed her hand on the statue’s shoulder, waited for a moment, then said to Shard:
"It’s just an ordinary stone statue."
"Is it possible that this too is a corpse, an innocent victim who died from the curse of the Mad Land?"
Shard asked, making sure the coffin ceased vibrating before approaching the statue:
"When I first saw this seated statue, I felt something was off. After all, the wrinkles of the person’s face, the details of the hair, and the marks on the clothes from sitting were too lifelike, and the expression on the face of the statue was too real. That expression of regret, relief, and pilgrimage-like devotion, I couldn’t even imagine it from thin air. When I first came to Randall Valley, I wasn’t aware of the Mad Land, so I didn’t guess that it was a living person turned to stone."
"I can’t divine on it, it’s not even a corpse, it’s just a rock."
Luviya frowned:
"If I directly divined the origin of the stone, the result would only be the earth. Your guess might be correct, but I prefer to investigate it as a genuine statue."
"You’re talking about the Randall Valley Stonemason Association?"
Luviya nodded:
"Investigating it as a corpse won’t lead us to more clues, if you’re interested in this, why not go to the local stonemason association to gather information. Such a realistic and perfect statue, if it’s the work of local masons, surely there would be records."
Shard agreed with this view, as he already planned to visit the Stonemason Guild. Margaret was handling the decades-long debt disputes between the Stonemason Guild and the Anjou Family, and there were local rumors about the Stonemasons making ’moveable stone people.’ Since the clues about ’Thomas Granger’ were temporarily cut off, investigating the stonemason association might not be a complete waste of time.
The seated statue was almost fused with the stone chair beneath it, Shard didn’t want to damage either one, nor did he wish to move what might be a corpse out of the church. So, he proposed renting a camera to photograph the statue, then take the pictures to the stonemason association for inquiry.
Camera use in this era was much more complex than the ’point-and-shoot’ ones in the Outlander’s hometown. Not only were the magnesium flashbulbs single-use, but setting up the lighting also required bulb replacements, with the trickiest part being focusing the lens.
There was no auto-focus technology yet, photographers needed to squint through dark cloths to adjust the focus manually, which required considerable skill.
For safety and discretion, Shard planned to rent a camera from Tobesk. He intended to take the photos himself; no advanced skills were needed, just capturing the general appearance of the statue would suffice.
So, Shard and Mia returned to Tobesk and arranged to meet Luviya again at two in the afternoon.
Upon returning to Tobesk, he originally planned to go directly to a photo studio to inquire about renting, but thought of another way after leaving home, so he went to Feather Quill Street to find Dorothy.
"You want to rent a camera from the Steam Bird Daily?"
Miss Writer’s Hamilton Detective Stories were serialized and distributed through Steam Bird Daily, and her father, Professor Luisa, was also a shareholder of the paper.
She planned to finish next week’s manuscript at home this morning, but since Shard rarely came for help, Dorothy gladly took Shard to the Steam Bird Daily’s office.
At present, she was the most important contributor to the Steam Bird Daily, so upon arriving, she directly took Shard to the editor-in-chief, Mr. Newcastle, a balding middle-aged man who appeared to be in his forties.
After explaining their intention, Mr. Newcastle, behind the desk, warmly offered his assistance:
"Hamilton Detective, instead of renting a camera, you might as well buy one. We have some discontinued old cameras here at the newspaper, although they still work, they’ve been rejected by our reporters due to their age. Since Mr. Hamilton needs it for investigation, you might need it frequently in the future. Why not buy an old one from us, I can give you a very cheap price."
Although it seemed like an attempt to clear inventory, Shard thought it a reasonable offer. So, he and Dorothy followed him to the warehouse to check out the old cameras. Even though they were old models, they worked without issue.
Shard decided to purchase one, though developing negatives still required a darkroom and chemical solutions. After negotiating the price, Shard bought a York Type II Camera produced in 1845 for the lowest price of 15 pounds, and additionally received three rolls of film and a box of replacement magnesium flashbulbs.
Beyond that, he could buy camera supplies from the Steam Bird Daily at any time, and today he could learn photography and film developing techniques here. The latter was the craft photographers relied on for their livelihood, but given Dorothy’s influence, Shard was allowed to learn these as well.